Death is the Last Lover (Prologue Books) Page 10

  “He had trouble?” Parker said, heavily ingenuous.

  “He might have had,” I said quite innocently.

  “You mean he needed a private eye because he’d got locked up once in conjunction with the murder of Vivian Frayne?”

  “He said he wanted to talk to me about Vivian Frayne.”

  “Couldn’t he have talked to you right there where he was?”

  “Am I one to dispute the whim of a prospective client, Lieutenant?”

  “And just what was the whim?” the Lieutenant inquired.

  “He asked me to come here to his apartment. Said he wanted to have discourse with me. Asked me to give him about an hour or so, and come here.”

  “And you came here — when?”

  “About five minutes prior to your finding me — with his head in my hands.”

  “How’d you get in?”

  “About the same as you got in, Lieutenant. The door was slightly open, and I left it that way. He was sitting in the chair you’re sitting in now. He was dying, a bullet through his neck, and one through his chest — I found him the way you saw him.”

  “I saw him dead.”

  “And I saw him just next to dead.”

  “Anything else, Peter?”

  “That’s about it, Louis. I’m very curious about that anonymous call.”

  “You’re curious.” He stood up. “I’d like you to come in with me, so we can get a formal statement from you on this thing. Okay?”

  “Certainly,” I said.

  A young cop was a lone sentinel outside the door and Parker told him to go in. “Any calls or callers,” Parker told him, “you know how to handle them. Take any messages and get them through to us. A caller in person, whoever it is, I want to talk to him. Or her.”

  “Yes, sir,” the young cop said.

  “There’s some whiskey,” Parker said. “You can have a snort or two, but don’t make a pig of yourself.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the young cop, restraining a smile. “Okay, Pete, let’s go,” Parker said.

  We drove to the precinct house in silence. Once, Parker said, “What did you think of Frayne’s apartment?” I said, “I haven’t been there yet.”

  He wafted a frown at me, continued driving, and then we were at the station house, and in his office two detectives were waiting in the company of a short woman with a backside as wide as an artist’s viewpoint.

  “From the switchboard at the Poly,” one of the detectives said.

  “Ah, Miss … Miss …” Parker said.

  “Mrs.,” the lady said. “Mrs. Rebecca Reilly.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Reilly,” Parker said. “About that phone call that came through to you, the emergency — ”

  “Your boys already quizzed me on that, sir.”

  “He’s Lieutenant Parker,” one of the detectives said.

  “Already quizzed me, Lieutenant Parker.”

  “Good, good,” Parker said. “They didn’t give a name, did they?”

  “No, sir, Lieutenant.”

  “Man’s voice or woman’s voice?”

  “Woman’s voice, sir.”

  “Remember what she said?”

  “Said something like: ‘Man’s been shot, emergency. Wadsworth Arms on West End Avenue. Apartment 6B.’ Then she hung right up.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “Called it in to our emergency downstairs, you know, where the wagon is, the ambulance. Then called it right in to the cops.”

  “Good, good,” Parker said. “Now was there anything special about the woman’s voice?”

  “No, sir, Lieutenant. A woman’s voice.”

  “Your emergency turned out to be a murder, Mrs. Reilly. Anything special, anything distinctive, about that woman’s voice may be of great help to us. Please think, Mrs. Reilly.”

  “I already thought, Lieutenant. She talked fast, is all, and hung up before, practically, I had a chance to breathe. But that’s all, sir. There weren’t anything special, no sir, not a thing, just a woman’s voice talking in a hurry.”

  Parker threw her a dim glance, nodded shortly, said, “Thank you very much. My boys will take you out to have a formal statement dictated and signed. And, oh, gentlemen, this is Peter Chambers. He’s got a statement for the stenographer too.”

  They took us to another room, Rebecca Reilly and me, and there we dictated our respective statements, and waited until they were typed, and then we read them and signed them and had our signatures witnessed, and then Mrs. Rebecca Reilly was permitted to go back to sitting in front of her switchboard, and I returned to Parker’s office.

  He was at his desk, brooding over two small pellets and one large typewritten sheet. “Crime,” he murmured, “it’s crazy.”

  “Yes, sir, Lieutenant,” I said in my best Rebecca Reilly manner.

  He snapped out of it, smiled wanly. “Okay on the statement?” he said.

  “A hundred percent fine,” I said. “I was succinct and grammatical. I did you proud.”

  Wistfully he looked at the pellets and sheet. “Crime …” he began.

  “What’s crazy?” I said.

  “Go get the hell out of here.”

  “You mean I’m discharged, Lieutenant?”

  But his gaze remained upon the objects on his desk.

  “Lieutenant,” I said, “confession is good for the soul. Talk eases the mind. Remember me? I’m your boy.”

  He lifted the two pellets, clenched them in a fist, squinted at me. “How well did you know Adam Frick?”

  “Pretty well.”

  “Do you know if he was acquainted with Mousie Lawrence?”

  “Offhand, I’d say no.” I squinted right back at him. “What’s crazy, Lieutenant?” I tried to make it sound casual but it came out with goose-bumps.

  “There are things that happen,” he said with a faint touch of malice in his voice, “that even you don’t know.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said meekly.

  “Not many things,” he amended. “Some things.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said meekly.

  “You wouldn’t figure to know that this happened. It hasn’t hit the papers yet.”

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Remember the Mousie Lawrence we talked about earlier today?”

  I’d fill him in on my part later on. This was not the time. I still had a Kiddy Malone to work on. “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Mousie Lawrence was murdered.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Okay, a mug like that gets killed, he gets killed. But you wouldn’t think that the world of Mousie Lawrence and the world of Adam Frick had any connection, now would you?”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said.

  “Neither would I,” he said. “A professional like this Mousie, and a wise-guy snot-nose like this Frick, you’d figure them worlds apart, wouldn’t you?”

  “I would,” I said.

  He opened his fist and showed me the pellets. “Slugs out of Adam Frick.” He pointed to the typewritten sheet on the desk. “Ballistic report,” he said. “How crazy can it get?”

  “Crazy like how?” I said.

  “The bullets we pried out of the bodies of each of them,” Parker said, “were discharged from the selfsame gun.” And he squinted again and scowled, thinking, as he scratched a hand through the scrub of his hair. “Please,” he said, “get the hell out of here. We’ve got work to do.”

  NINETEEN

  It was somewhat late for making a social call at a mansion on upper Fifth Avenue but there I was, making the call, my finger pressed to a large white bell. There was no answer but I persisted, rigid digit firm, patient as that hero of yesteryear with his finger stuck in the dike. The patience of this year’s hero was finally rewarded by a sound within: a scrape of metal. Then the door opened against a chain-latch, giving a spread of about four inches, and I was greeted by one peering eye and the two nostrils of a nose. The British accent, entirely unruffled, inquired, quite mildly, “Yes,
what is it, please?”

  “I’m to see Mrs. Phelps.”

  Either the eye recognized me or the nostrils smelled me. “Ah, Mr. Chambers.” Then the British accent was muffled by lugubrious overtones. “So late, late, it is rather late, don’t you think, sir?”

  “Yes I think. But it’s important. Is she asleep?”

  “No, sir, I don’t believe so. Though I was.”

  “Please forgive me,” I said. “But if she’s up, she could have come to the door herself, couldn’t she?”

  “Mrs. Phelps never comes to the door, sir.”

  “Then blame her, don’t blame me.”

  “I’m not blaming anyone, sir. You insist it’s important?”

  “Not insisting, really. Just stating.”

  “If you’ll please wait, sir, I’ll go inquire.”

  “Thank you.”

  The door was closed in my face, but gently.

  Minutes later, it was opened, all the way.

  The butler was sleepy-eyed and wrapped within a blanket of bathrobe but the old boy had the knack: he was quite as dignified as though he were in tails. “Mrs. Phelps is in the drawing room, sir, you know where it is. You’ll pardon me if I don’t escort you. Good night, sir.”

  “Good night,” I said. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “Not at all, sir, not at all.”

  He smiled, nodded, turned, and disappeared through an archway on the right. I went to my left, to the drawing room, now softly lit by candles. She was waiting for me in the middle of the room, strikingly handsome in the candlelight. She was wearing black silk high-necked lounging pajamas. She was taller than I had thought, standing regal and imperious, alone in the room. She looked good, the blue-gray hair swept back in a youthful ponytail, the large proud brown eyes insolently appraising me, every point and curve of her revealed in the black silk pajamas, and the lady had excellent points and excellents curves. She was still on the brandy although she had switched from the bulbous curves of a snifter glass to the more serviceable straight lines of a water tumbler which, at this moment, half-full, she held in her right hand.

  “A nocturnal rendezvous,” she said. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. Chambers?”

  Even her voice was different, vibrant and with a curious husky excitement in it.

  “I have a report for you,” I said.

  “Couldn’t it have waited?” she said.

  “Would you have wanted it that way?”

  “I think this is exactly the way I want it,” she said, and she smiled, and I noticed her teeth, bright-white and even, and her lips, red-wet and glistening. I was suddenly very much aware of her and she seemed to sense it. “I have an announcement to make to you, Mr. Chambers,” she said, “before you make your report to me.”

  “Announcement?” I said.

  “I am very drunk,” she said.

  “You certainly don’t appear to be,” I said.

  “That’s my curse,” she said. “The drunker I get, the more sober, it seems, do I act. I don’t even stagger, damn it. Oh, in the end, I fall down, I just curl up and collapse. But until then I remain very much the lady except for uncontrollable impulses.” She set the glass down on a table and came near me, without a stagger.

  “Impulses?” I said.

  “Something like this,” she said. She put her arms around me and kissed me. My hands hung at my sides, but not for long. Her mouth was hot, her lips soft, her tongue inquisitive and experienced. My arms came up around her and pressed her to me. Her body was softly feminine, but strong, and there was a fragrance about her. Her knee moved up between the two of mine and she wriggled and we clung like that and I had a sudden vision of becoming a private pilot at three hundred dollars a week and expenses although I had not the slightest idea as to what makes an airplane tick, let alone fly. And then her mouth moved to my ear and she whispered, “This has been on my mind since late this afternoon. You’re a very attractive man, Mr. Chambers.” And then she let go and backed off and the insolent eyes appraised me again and she said, “Too bad you don’t drink, Mr. Chambers.”

  “Who said that?” I gasped.

  “You did,” she said, “this afternoon.”

  “Well, I’ve learned since then.”

  “Help yourself,” she said and waved toward the bar. And as I poured, she said, “Adam told me you were a liar. He said you drink like a fish, more power to you.”

  “Let’s talk about Adam,” I said.

  Her chin went up. “Let’s have your report first.”

  “Your husband’s all right,” I said. “He’s here in town.”

  “Did you tell him to call me?”

  “He’ll call you.”

  “Well, he hasn’t yet.”

  “He will,” I said. “Let’s talk about Adam.”

  She lifted her tumbler, held it out to me, smiled, and drank. “First, please,” she said, “let me make a small speech. Adam Frick was a charming young scoundrel who amused me for a while. When I’m amused, I’m vitally interested. But with the Adam Fricks, that passes. Adam was young and beautiful, but quite dull. For instance, you’re not quite as young nor quite as beautiful as Adam Frick, but you’re much more of a man, and I’m certain you’d never be dull. A man like you could be dangerous for a woman like me.”

  “And Adam Frick?”

  “Adam Frick passed out of my life today. Suddenly, I was sick and tired of Adam Frick, and sick and tired of myself for ever having been interested in Adam Frick.”

  “He’s dead, Mrs. Phelps.”

  “I know,” she said, “and frankly it doesn’t mean a thing to me. Adam Frick was destined to die violently and in the prime of his youth. He was a wretched, evil young man who constantly played cat and mouse with death. That’s a losing game, Mr. Chambers.”

  “Now just a minute,” I said.

  “Do I sound heartless? Honestly, I don’t mean to.” She drank from her tumbler. “But I’m not a child, Mr. Chambers. The fact of death, the inevitable fact of death, simply doesn’t frighten me, and I cannot be hypocritical about these things. I’ve seen a good deal of death in my lifetime, Mr. Chambers. There are some whom I’ve mourned, and others whom I haven’t. Adam Frick is dead and I do not mourn him and I shall make no pretense that I do.”

  “And suppose I tell you that you may be involved in this death — involved, as far as the authorities are concerned?”

  “I would regret that, of course.” She came near me again. “And now, please, would you tell me how you know he is dead, and how you know I may be involved in it?”

  “Hang on to your brassiere straps, Mr. Phelps. We do it my way, if you please.”

  She smiled. “You see what I mean about your not being dull.”

  “Let’s start with Vivian Frayne,” I said.

  “The lady whom my husband is suspected of murdering?”

  “You may be suspected yourself, Mrs. Phelps.”

  “Am I?”

  “Not yet.”

  “But I may be? When?”

  “When I’m finished saying my piece. To the police.”

  “Oh now,” she said and kissed my lips lightly. “Do I smell a little blackmail?”

  “You don’t smell a thing, Mrs. Phelps. Except, perhaps, yourself.”

  “Touche,” she said. “I deserved that.” She chuckled. “You’re certainly not dull, Mr. Chambers. Watch out. I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  “I’m watching,” I said. “Let’s get back to Vivian Frayne. You kind of hated her, didn’t you?”

  “Temporarily. During my early infatuation with Adam.”

  “I know all about that.”

  “I assume you do, Mr. Chambers. I assume Adam confided in you. But at the time of Miss Frayne’s death, my affections for Adam were on the wane. I can’t honestly say she was important enough any more for hatred.”

  “Look, Mrs. Phelps. I was here this afternoon. I saw the way you looked at Adam.”

  “You may have been confusing pass
ion with disgust. Both are strong emotions.”

  She was either brilliantly clever or unthinkably honest.

  “I talked with him here on the phone,” I said. “I had to use subterfuge to get him out of here.”

  “On his say-so, wasn’t it, Mr. Chambers?”

  “Yes, on his say-so.”

  “As a matter of fact, I would have been delighted to have had him out of here, the quicker the better. But his stupid male ego didn’t permit him to tell that to you. He was here because he wanted to be here. He was trying to negotiate a loan from me. He wanted money in order to retain a skilled lawyer. He had been arrested and released in connection with Vivian Frayne’s death. He was still a suspect.”

  “I know all about that,” I said.

  “About his trying to borrow money from me?”

  “No. About his being arrested and released. Now please listen to me carefully, Mrs. Phelps.”

  “I’m listening, Mr. Chambers.”

  “I got him out of here,” I said.

  “On the pretense that he would assist you in locating my husband. That was a pretense, wasn’t it, Mr. Chambers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course. Please go on.”

  “We got together, Adam and I. He had some clear-cut idea as to the murderer of Vivian Frayne. He was to see that person, and have it out, once and for all, tonight. And then he was going to tell me about it; at least something about it, one way or another. Were you that person, Mrs. Phelps?”

  “Categorically — no!”

  “But you did go to visit him tonight, didn’t you?” Sharply she said, “How do you know that?”

  “I saw you,” I said.

  She was silent, gnawing at a corner of her mouth between her teeth.

  “I saw you come out of there,” I said. “You took the very same cab I had gotten out of. I was up in his apartment within three minutes. I found him dying, shot through the neck and chest. Did you kill him, Mrs. Phelps?”

  “Categorically — no!”

  “Do you want to talk to me about it, Mrs. Phelps?”

  “Are you going to talk to the police?”

  “I have every intention to.”

  “Have you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “And when do you — have every intention to?”